Handcrafted by Helen

Tuesday, 6 December 2016

I couldn't do a series of Christmas cards without doing a shaker card. This one I have tried to create a winter tree scene for inside the bauble and to have snow for the shaker material.

I started doing my shaker background with a piece of Tim Holtz water colour card, and masked off an area for a snow bank at the bottom, and the moon/sun and then blended a background using tumbled glass, salty ocean and blueprint sketch distress inks. Then removed the snow bank mask at the bottom and lightly with the tumbled glass blended in another slightly different shaped snow bank below the first one.

Then I replaced the top snowbank mask and stamped two trees using an old wooden tree stamp I had, and then removed that snowbank mask, and replaced the second one and stamped two more trees, so they looked like they were more in the foreground.

Finally I put some snow using a Simon says stamp stencil called falling snow and some texture paste mixed with some iridescent glitter.

To make the actual card, I cut out a circle with a circle die out of the front of my card panel and also with a slightly bigger circle die, I cut a circle into a piece of craft foam. I stuck down a piece of acetate over the back of the cut circle on my card panel, and then stuck down the craft foam onto that. I made sure I went thoroughly around the aperture with double side tape on both sides of the craft foam, as I didn't want any of my chunky glitter to fall out. I had forgotten to put my sentiment onto the card front, so with my misti I stamped the sentiment.

Finally I put the background onto my card base, filled the card panel up with some chunky white glitter that looked like snow and adhered them together.

Finally I used the very top 'hanger' part of a Christmas ornament die I had to make a hanger for this bauble. and that was the card finished.

If you would like to see the video of making this card it is here

The materials I have used for this card are

Spellbinder Circle die in two sizes

Card base and panel is White linen card 5 x 7"

Small piece of silver foil paper

Paper Artist 3 Lacy ornaments dies

SSS Warm Wishes stamp set

Versafine Onyx black ink

Ranger clear embossing powder

Tim Holtz water colour card

post-it notes for masking

Distress inks tumbled glass, salty ocean & blueprint sketch

Ranger mini blending tool and sponges

Misti stamping tool

Craft Foam

Acetate

Ranger Non stick mat

Stampfantastic wooden tree stamp

SSS falling snow stencil

Ranger texture paste

Iridescent glitter

White chunky glitter for snow

spatula

I hope you will have a go at making something similar to this card, it was really quite easy, and everyone loves a shaker card at Christmas.

Tuesday, 29 November 2016

This card is for all the people who live in countries where you have a warm Christmas instead of a winter Christmas.We usually have between 25C - 30C, but today was already 28C, so it may be even warmer than that this year.

This card is using the Warm Christmas Wishes stamp set by Simon says stamp, and has a very cute santa in board shorts and sunglasses!

I stamped the stamps I wanted to use with momento tuxedo black ink and coloured them with a selection of Copics if I had them, or the Reno art alcohol markers I have. See below for the full list of colours for each image. I then fussy cut them out right to the stamped edge, went around the edge with a black pen.

To make the background I made a cloud stencil with a post-it and then inked the clouds onto a piece of card with tumbled glass distress ink and a mini blending tool. I also cut out two curvy shapes that could be sand at the bottom of my scene and inked them with antique linen and a touch of mustard seed.

To do the frame I cut a stitched rectangle into the centre of a card panel the same size as the card base, and then used the inside edge of the same die to cut a rectangle out of the red card, so that it was an even amount on the inside of the frame.

Then it was a matter of mounting the background to the card base, then the sand on top of that, then the frame over that. Finally I mounted the scene how I wanted it and think it turned out very cute!

Here is a video to show how it was made

The materials I used are

SSS Warm Wishes stamp set

Momento tuxedo black ink

White card base and front panel 5 x 7"

Card for background, stamping and sand

Distress inks tumbled glass, antique linen & mustard seed

Ranger mini blending tool and sponges

Acrylic block

SSS stitched rectangle dies

craft knife

Emboss black pen

Foam tape

Cosmic simmer glue

Quilled pecision glue bottle

Wink of stella pen

Glossy accents

Cutter bee scissors

Copic and Reno art alcohol makers

Surf board: Copics R22, R35, R49, B00 & B02

Reno art 237, 270, 271 & 273

Beach ball: Copics R22, R35, R49, YG17,

Reno art 158, 224, 225, 24, 240, 242, 192 & 193

Santa: Copics R22, R35, B00, B02, YG17, E00, E02, E11 & RV 02

RA 259, 260, 225, 192

Drinks Table: Copics E11, E35, YG17, R22, R35, B00, B02

RA 24, 27, 192 & 193

Palm tree: Copics E11, E35, YG17 & R49

RA 24, 248, 192, 225, 242 & 158

I hope you enjoyed this card and video, and I managed to inspire you for something for your Christmas cards this year.

Tuesday, 22 November 2016

This card is part of my Christmas 2016 series by request. When I first said I was going to do some card videos, I got asked by some friends if I could do a card using this open book die and show how I did the music on it.

I traced around the centre part of the book die with a pencil onto scrap paper, and then cut just inside the lines to make myself a template for cutting out the music.

I made a copy of the two jpgs of the sheet music I wanted to use, and put them

on a document, then shrunk them down in size until they would fit into the centre part of the book die. I also made sure I made a text box behind the two sheet music jpgs, so that it there were areas beyond the music that needed to fill in space on the die it would look like it was part of the open page.

Tuesday, 15 November 2016

This card is using the Emboss resist technique once again, I am going to stamp poinsettias and mistletoe stamps on half of a front card panel with White embossing powder and also some of the largest poinsettia flowers onto vellum. I cut these out with the matching full petal die. I then blended red distress ink over the stamped panel, going from dark at the outside edge and then lightening the blending towards the middle of the card panel.

Once I have the blending finished I can trim the panel to fit my card base. I then stamped the sentiment towards the bottom and to the right of the card, leaving enough space for the vellum poinsettias.

I had intended to just use the single petals of the poinsettia, but they were a bit lost on the background, so I went with using two layers of the vellum petals, and liked that much better. I finished off by putting a trio of white flatback pearls into each of the centres to finish the card off.

This card can be done with other Christmas stamps instead of the poinsettias, and is not necessarily a Christmas card only, you could use other flower stamps and make any other kind of card. I hope it has given you some inspiration.

Tuesday, 8 November 2016

This one is an elegant poinsettia card using just silver and white. I love these simpler colour schemes for Christmas. This card I did for Fat Cats Card Corner back in August, they kindly provided the Sue Wilson Poinsettia additions die set, but I thought it would be a good card to have as part of my Christmas series.

The card front and top panel were both cut out with the stitched frames from the Sue Wilson Lattice frame die set, using the largest and the 3rd size in the set.

I used the Kaisercraft 'Yuletide' stamp set for the sentiment done in Silver embossing powder. The top panel was then put onto the card base with fun foam.

The poinsettias were made with the Sue Wilson Poinsettia Additions die set which has solid dies and outline dies. So I cut out 1 large and 2 small of the full petal dies with silver glitter card, and then 1 large and 2 small of the outlines dies in each silver mirror card and white card. I shaped the petals slightly and then glued the mirror die cut onto the silver glitter die and then finally the white on top and finished it off with a silver dazzler gem for each of the flowers.

The pine bough is an Impression Obsession die and I cut 5 out of them, and then trimmed them down a little.

Here is a video showing how I made the card

The materials I used for this card are

The supplies I used are:

Creative Expressions Sue Wilson Lattice Frame die set

Card base cut to the same size as the larges of the frames from the frame set

Creative Expressions Sue Wilson Poinsettiea additions die set

Impression obsession Pine bough die

Kaisercraft Yuletide stamp set

Ranger Silver embossing powder

Versamark watermark ink

Heat gun

Fun foam

Ebosser

double sided tape

Silver glitter card

Silver mirror card

White card

Silver dazzler gems

Cosmic Shimmer glue

Quilled precision glue bottle

I hope this inspired you to look at your poinsettia dies a little differently and maybe to use different types of card together with beautiful results.

Wednesday, 2 November 2016

This is the first card in my Christmas 2016 series and I have kept this one fairly simple

The stamp is from Wild Rose studio and is just called Santa and Rudolf. I have stamped it, in alcohol marker friendly ink, and then coloured it with the copics I have and some of the Reno Art markers to fill in the gaps of my very small copic collection.

Thesentiment is from a Kaisercraft stamp set called 'Mistletoe'

Once all the stamping and colouring was done I used the Simon Says Stamp 'falling snow' stencil and with some Ranger texture paste made a snowy background but masked the santa and rudolf off, as I didn't want snow on them. While the texture paste was still wet, I sprinkled it with some polysparkle embossing powder, and then set it aside to dry completely before heating the embossing powder with my heat tool.

This was then trimmed down and mounted with fun foam onto a card base.

I have a video on how I made the card.

The supplies I used are:

Rudolf and Santa stamp by Wild Rose Studio

Momento tuxedo black ink

Misti

Kaisercraft Mistletoe stamp set

Ranger texture paste

Simon Says stamps Falling snow stencil

Ranger polysparkle embossing powder

Heat gun

5 x 7 card base

double sided tape

Alcohol markers: Browns Renoart 246, Copics E11, E35, E37, E55

Reds Copics R22, R35, R46 & Renoart 159

Green Renoart 13 & 27

Greys Renoart 259, 260, 261, 270, 271, 272

Blues Copics B00, B02

Purples Renoart 192, 195

Yellow Renoart 225

Skin Copics E00, E02, E11

White jelly roll pen

I hope this card inspired you to get started on your Christmas cards, its always a great excuse to make some cute cards.

Wednesday, 26 October 2016

There's something almost magical about the emboss resist technique, the way the design appears when you do ink blending over it. It reminds me of the magic paint books I got as a child, where you painted on water, and then a picture magically appeared.

This card I have used the Altenew Persian Motif stamp set to stamp an all over design in two triangular patterns on the top and bottom of the card, leaving a strip in the middle where I am to put the sentiment.

I stamped two of the flowers from the stamp set with versamark ink and then embossed it with white embossing powder.

The ink blending I used Distress inks in pretty jewel colours and then stamped a sentiment which would go with my die cut 'thanks' sentiment. I trimmed the panel down, so it would leave a little strip on the left hand side, to do a strip of black and white washi tape.

I have made a video on how I made the card, although it is a very simple card, depending on what colours you use, the effects are really lovely.